Major engineering contract for Bellefonte

Tuesday, 5 October 2010

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has awarded Areva a contract for engineering and design work towards the completion of the Bellefonte nuclear power plant. 

 

Waiting for completion: Bellfonte 1 and 2

TVA is considering completing one of two partially built pressurised water reactors (PWRs) at the Alabama site as part of a future vision that sees an increasing reliance on nuclear power. The authority has set aside $248 million in its fiscal 2011 budget for work towards completion of Bellefonte unit 1, which it has identified as its preferred option for the site, although no formal board decision on whether to go ahead with the project has yet been made.

Areva's North American subsidiary has now been contracted to carry out engineering work on the plant's nuclear island, as well as working on a new state-of-the-art digital instrumentation and control (I&C) system and an advanced control room. Areva's announcement did not disclose the value of the contract, but detailed that it covers "engineering, licensing and procurement of long lead time materials in support of a possible start-up date in the 2018-9 timeframe."

Areva was quick to point out that its Teleperm XS system was the first digital I&C system to receive full approval by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) earlier this year when the regulator sanctioned the installation of the system at Duke Energy Carolinas' Oconnee nuclear power station as part of a major upgrade to replace 1970s-era analogue, solid-state system controls.

 

Construction permits were granted the two 1213 MWe Babcock & Wilcox PWRs at Bellefonte in 1974, but in a climate of declining power demand construction was abandoned in 1988 when the units were 88% and 58% complete respectively. Today unit 1 is considered about 55% complete, as since 1988 many of its components have been transferred or sold and others will need to be upgraded or replaced.

 

In more recent years, TVA has been considering the possibility of completing one or both of the units or building a new nuclear power plant at the site. The NRC reinstated the construction permits for the reactors in 2009. Assuming TVA's board decides to proceed with the completion of unit 1, the plant would be expected to start up around 2018-2019.

Researched and written 

by World Nuclear News